Snake and Spider, Associates
by ElvenBookwyrm
Summary: The side of good does not hold a onopoly on tragic love stories. Click on the link to read a tale of love, death, and new beginnings. One-shot.


A/N: I've finally found my calling: writing one-shots that force you to look at things a different way. This is to all you who are used to thinking of things through tunnel vision. The side of good does not hold a monopoly on tragic love stories.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own anything recognizable.  
  
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"Where is my papa?" the youngling murmured sleepily to the woman who was carrying him.  
  
"He has fallen asleep, but he will see you in the morning." It was strange, she thought, to be able to understand such a small and fragile thing; much more so to be protecting it. She had only once been protected in her life, and that was before she was born. But she understood why she must act as protector and defender, for the child she was cradling with almost motherly affection was his father's heir, and therefore the only one who could help her continue their business after his passing. She gently placed the boy's dozing form on his soft hammock, and covered him with a blanket of the same web like material.  
  
When she supped with the boy's father later that night, she was unusually quiet. In response to the man's queries, she responded by telling him, "I was merely reflecting on how glad I've become that your kind does not bear any bodily hair. Surely," she explained, "if they did, he would remind me of the one runt that had the nerve to keep me from a meal, your son."  
  
"Your son also, my lady," he reminded her, "even if you will not remember it. Your son and your business partner, soon."  
  
"Don't speak like that." Her sharp tone of voice in those four words conveyed more emotion and passion than she had ever shown any other person. "We do not know that you must die. We have another place or two to search before we give up hope! I will not let you give up, for I –" She stopped her rant and carefully considered her next words. "I need you." That was sufficiently vague, she reasoned, although he already knew that she meant it in more than a business sense. Much more.  
  
Tears welled up in his serpentine eyes. "My lady, there is something I must tell you. When the Shaman blessed our union, made us able to understand each other, and to take on these human forms, he gave me a choice. The choice was this, dearest: me or you. He foretold that one day, we would have a child. This child would either be a daughter, very much like you, or a son, terribly like me. This child would also be an heir to their similar parent in every possible way. But there would be a price. One of us would age, grow old, die, while the other would be left to brave the ages without them, unless one day when they could produce another heir. I could not doom you to death without your consent. In any case, darling, you have more experience in the changes of time, having been here for so many years as it is."  
  
"You would leave me here, then, alone? When we found each other, you saw the toll loneliness had taken on me, and still you would abandon me?"  
  
"No. Not abandon. Our son is still there for you, and will be still if and when you find that it is time to join me." As he spoke these words, the light began to fade in his eyes, and a wild panic overtook those of his wife.  
  
"Wait!" Her tone was defeated, but she knew she needed him to stay for at least a little while more. "I have promised your– our son that you would wake to greet him in the morning. Will you not stay to bid your farewells to him also?"  
  
_Thus ended a chapter of history in the elusive murder-for-hire company called 'Snake and Spider, Associates'. The co-head of the company, a young man named Nakass, claimed that his now-reclusive mother was the real brains of the company. Shelob herself would never comment on this or any other aspect to the media, withdrawing almost completely after the death of her beloved husband Kaa. Although we cannot be entirely sure of the facts, as records of the company and its origins are incomplete, it was nearly a century after the death of the first co-leader that Shelob died, leaving behind a daughter by the name of Ungoli, reputedly a shortened form of her grandmother's name. And though this one chapter of the story had ended, the tale in completion was just beginning.  
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A/N: As I said before, this is a ONE SHOT! Honestly, I'd need at least ten positive reviews and a beta-reader to continue in this train of thought. However, if you'd like to write about the exploits of Snake and Spider, Associates, past or future, you have my permission and my blessing.  
  
--- ElvenBookwyrm 


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